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Monday, 23 November 2015

Hello my friends,I hope you are having / had a good Monday. For today's insprational post we're talking about creating from the heart as opposed to the head. I always find this subject an interesting one...

If you're feeling it and are not overthinking it you're winning. Do you find projects never work so well if you're thinking everything out too much? Creativity is about freedom and expression. It seems getting too wound up in the ins and outs just results in you feeling stifled, which is so far removed from what art is supposed to be about. Thinking seems the foe of artistic endeavours...

The best projects I've ever created (in my own opinion) are ones that I seemingly "threw" together hap hazardly with complete freedom and enjoyment which were not overly planned or particularly thought out. For me it feels resourceful, fun and free .

I know most of the projects I struggle with are ones where I'm thinking, thinking, thinking and possibly over complicating things. Creating in an almost absent minded sense means you end up creating more intuitively which always produces an end result that works and falls into place.

How do you like to create? Do you have creative issues? Would love to hear!

Friday, 20 November 2015

I hope you are well. We are back with a new challenge over at the Mixed Media Place blog today. And we're getting festive...

As we are fast approaching Christmas here is our new Creative Gym:
Create an Xmas card, tag or ATC (only small forms are allowed). Fun,
fun, fun!

So this month's challenge was perfect for me as I love creating in miniture. When I think of Christmas I see glitter, shine and metallics. Which I think work beautifully with white, beige and brown and is a favourite festive combo of mine.

I've used acetate as a base for my ATC's and stuck to natural
tones to let the shine and sparkle do the talking! I created texture
with Light Paste and Gesso adding in old sheet music, book pages and
gorgeous glass glitter.

I just doodled a star onto sheet music paper, snipped around the outline and added some fine liner outlines. gorgeous glass glitter

For the second card I stippled Light Paste onto the actate base with a palette knife and pushed a piece of torn book paper into the wet paste. I stained with tea

My final ATC uses scraps of mesh and materials along with more book paper which I adhered to the acetate with Prima Art Basics Soft Matte Gel. I finished with more doodling on the flower and tea staining.

These little cards are so much fun to create, I encourage anyone to have a play with ATC's!

Going into your creative zone is to kick off the restraints of life - whatever they may be and retreating into another world. So many times I have heard people say they went into their craft room / studio and didn't realise 4 hours had passed by! When I first started making cards, it was like entering into my own
little world and I was completely immersed in the moment. To switch of
and connect with yourself.

And if you think about it, it is true
freedom. If you have a blank piece of paper or canvas in front of you, you can
literally do whatever you want with it and that's the exciting part.
There are no rules, no restrictions or pressure from anybody else but
yourself. And there are not many things which can put claim that.

Art = freedom, letting go and creating your own bubble away from everything. And that is pretty cool thing to be part of.

Saturday, 7 November 2015

Hello sweeties! I'm spreading a little brightness today with this card I created for the Mixed Media Place blog.

Winter is most certainly back! What with the dark
nights, dreary days and general dullness I wanted to brighten up the
Winter days, hence the inspiration for this card was to make something
that was texturally rich and colourful whilst being resourceful.

I find mixing bold bright colours is very uplifting. Add in different textures,
great embellishments and it is something that I find
irresistable to work with. Do you always have a colours or elements that
call to you? One of mine is orange, blue,
mixed with denim and cardboard. Love!

For the
background I blended a selection of Distress inks which I stenciled over
with Chicken Wire and Dots & Stripes stencils with black and Broken
China blue ink. I mixed 3D gel with orange paint and gave a final
textured layer to the card. Layering stencils is a great way to create
backgrounds and interest to projects.

I have also, as I quite
often do, recycled bits and pieces off my workspace to create this card;
a denim circle, bubble wrap, acetate and lace.

The chipboard star was painted with crackle paint and highlighted with ink once dry, I then decorated
with Mechanicals embellishments.

So, onto our inspirational post for this week which is a fab little statement I found.

Do any of you ever think "is this just too random or off beat"? This may be a reference to art you create, clothing, or your tastes in general. I know I do. I started to wonder why we think this at times. Isn't the point of an idea to create or to like something there for a reason?

Surely the whole meaning of these things is they make up who you are and what you're about. All those "bizarre" little quirks or ideas. Not to think should I change /should I play it safe with this and not do what I truly desire because I think people will think it's a bit, well weird.

We should go with the flow of the ideas that are calling and happily accept that this me so why try and change it or deny that. If there is a strong sense of your own style whatever it may be, hold on to it and run with it. Don't dilute it.

I found two wonderful quotes which sum this up perfectly.

"In order to be irreplacable, one must always be different." - Coco Chanel

"The things that make me different are the things that make me." - A.A. Milne

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Fran Westmoreland

I have a life long passion for creating and my love of making cards, scrapbook layouts and mixed media started in 2006. I love experimenting, learning, sharing and developing new techniques in my work.